//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4. Waking up, AGAIN!!! 
// Story: A New Teacher 
// by Sparky Brony 
//------------------------------//

My eyes slide slowly open. I'm in a different bed. I look around. Where the hell is this? Memories of my dream crash into me and I jerk up out of the bed and fall onto the floor. I untangle myself from the covers and my new ears swivel back and forth. Searching for some sound indicating that someone heard me. After several tense seconds, I relax a bit. Luna has explained the situation, but I'm still a freaking pony. I think it's going to be a while before I'm able to contemplate that outside a dream with any level of comfort.  I try to move quietly around the room. I'm not in the same room I was in before. 

This is completely different. It looks like this room was carved out of a huge tree. Looking at the walls, every available space is taken up by books. I mean every book you can think of. I've never been a reader, but even I'm impressed. And this is a bedroom? I wonder what the rest of the house looks like. I trot over to the door and press my ear to it. Utter silence. I glance out the window, it's daylight, so at least one of those ponies should be up and about. I look at the door, it has a door knob, pretty convenient if you have the magic of a unicorn, I'm not putting my mouth on that. I look around the room. It's actually pretty big, there is an odd shaped set of French doors, I trot over to them, and they have more hoof friendly latching equipment. In moments the doors are open and I stride out onto a nice sized balcony. Wait a moment, this is a balcony, in a tree. I look down, I'm easily three or four stories up.

Looking around, I'm about in the middle of the tree, this thing is huge. A shadow passes over me, it's moving pretty quickly, I see the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life, at least before I came to this weird ass place. A pegasus pony, and she was pushing a cloud around. I mean seriously, a cloud is just water vapor, and this pegasus was pushing the cloud around like it had mass. I rub my eyes with my fetlock, violently shake my head, the look back up. The pegasus is gone, the cloud is no longer moving. Whew. 

I turn back and stumble a bit. I look down. Oh yeah, I'm a quadruped now. I've been moving fairly easily when I don't think about it. Though I can feel that I'm a bit wobbly. I guess like a new foal, they can walk within hours of birth, and I must be an equivalent to a newborn foal in this world. Another shadow passes over me. It's that same pegasus mare. She's a light lavender with a blonde looking mane. She's got one of those pictures on her flank. I squint, it's a cloud half covering the sun. Wait a moment, she's got another cloud. I look around the sky, there are about a dozen more pegasi moving clouds. This is seriously twisting my noodle.

I sit down on my rump, time to think for a moment. These pegasi seem to find it pretty easy to fly. I have several years of flight experience under my belt…or maybe, wing… I don't know. I can out fly these little ponies. All I have to do is figure out how to get off the ground. I spread my wings, I take a moment to admire them. I look to each side, I must have a good fourteen foot wingspan, not as much as my F-18, but I don't weigh nearly as much. I move the wings slowly, trying to figure out how each movement feels. In moments I've figured out how the wings work, I can adjust nearly everything on them, I can feel the leading edge, I can feel the stiff primaries. They actually feel pretty awesome. I give them a powerful flap. I'm gratified with my hooves lifting off the balcony for a moment. My grin splits my face. I can fly without an aircraft. This is cool. I hop on the balcony railing with my wings spread. Well, all baby birds are eventually pushed out of the nest, better fly. My concentration is broken by the door back in my room opening. I look back, there's a purple and green lizard running at me. I don't wait to decipher it's facial expressions. I spring off the balcony and flap hard. In moments, I'm not only airborne, I'm accelerating. I hear something behind me as I bank to avoid the flying pegasi and their freaky cloud bank. And I take off!

I only thought I could fly before. Nothing, not me flying an old Cessna 172, not getting certified in the T-45, and eventually the F/A-18 could even compare to this. Oh God above. I will never be closer to you than I am right now. I figure out an aileron roll. Yes! A barrel roll.  Even better, I pull off an old World One move, the Immelmann turn, climbing hard and spinning around in midair, allowing me to dive down in any direction I want. If I have to be a pony, this is how to do it. My grin is huge as I accelerate further. I start to climb. Straight up with every bit of strength that my wings will give me. The land opens up to me as I gain altitude. I see the town I just took off from. The mountains have a huge city carved into the side. Wow, this land that Luna has brought me to is beautiful. I stop climbing for a moment to appreciate the scenery. My wings somehow know what to do. I'm just hovering there. I can feel that the temperature has dropped quite a bit from ground level. But it doesn't bother this body in the slightest. I don't think I will ever stop smiling, so long as I can keep flying like this.

My time by myself is quickly interrupted, a light lavender face pushes itself into my field of view. I know that face. It was that pegasus moving clouds earlier.  She's talking, I had better pay attention…

"…wing, you need to land."

I shake my head, "Beg pardon."

The mare shakes her head irritably. "Hey, freakwing, it's time for you to land. Twilight couldn't catch up with you, so she had me catch up. She wants you back at the library." 

She called me freakwing, what the hell? I look at her wings, they are about the same as the other pegasi wings. Those wings are, extended, nearly their body length, mine are more than double that. Okay, I've got large wings for a pegasus. No problem. I smirk at the blonde mare.

"I'll go back to the library, once you catch me." I say as I fold my wings and flip my body to dive for the ground. I can feel something as I dive. There is more than the aerodynamic forces on my wings. I have to be doing something else, I'm falling faster than gravity can account for. Well, if pegasi can move clouds around, stand on them, and everything they seem to be doing, why don't they have magic to help them fly. I howl in delight as I accelerate downwards. Now, this. This is flying.

I glance behind me, the two toned blonde locks of the lavender mare are flapping in the breeze as she huffs and puffs trying to catch up to me. I'm leaving her in my contrail. Yes, this is awesome. I glance ahead, the ground is coming up quick. I had better pull out of this dive. Hard G-forces punish my body as level out. I look back, that must have been a seven or eight G pullout and I not only didn't pass out from that without a flight suit, this body seemed to do everything to keep blood where it belongs, to the wing muscles and the brain. This is a body designed to fly. I'm whooping it up as I pass over the buildings of the town I took off from. I dodge the big oak tree that I took off from, in moments I'm over a large, pleasant looking forest. After a few seconds I hear something coming in from my right. I glance to that side and only have a moment to gasp before a rainbow colored trail slams into me. I look down, the cyan mare from earlier has her hooves wrapped around me, determination in her face as she throws all my balance off.

"Get off of me, you are going to make us crash." I scream at her. With her disrupting my flight, I'm losing altitude quickly.

She looks at me, all four of her hooves wrapped around my barrel. "Maybe you should have listened to Cloud Kicker when she told you Twilight wanted you." 

I'm getting more and more frantic, I'm flapping my wings harder and harder, but her weight is disrupting everything. And her wings aren't helping me either. She's using them as air brakes to slow me down. 

"Get off of me you idiot, we are going to crash and die." I scream.

She chuckles at me, "Pegasi are far more resilient than you think."

With that we are just about to hit the tops of the trees. I do the only thing I can think of. I bring my wings to be a sort of protective cocoon as I crash through the branches. In moments I hit a tree trunk big enough to stop me. I fall about twenty feet to the ground.

I lay there, quite stunned, I'm able to fold my wings to my sides. Though I'm trying to breathe. The cyan mare, I finally remember her name. "Rainbow, that was dirty pool." I wheeze. Maybe I should wait a bit before I have air in my lungs to berate the mare. Rainbow, for her part, is laughing as she gets off of me. She hits me in the shoulder with her hoof.

"Thanks for being the cushion for a soft landing dude. And the name is Rainbow Dash, not just Rainbow."

I give her a dirty look. "You could have killed us both."

She flips her relatively short mane. "That's a load, dude. I just performed a text book take down of an uncooperative pegasus. Grab the pony off balance, use your wings as an air brake, and wait for them to either tire out, or crash. By the way, all you had to do to show you submit would be to fold your wings, and I would have taken over and brought you to the ground easily." She stops and smiles at me. "But this way was more fun."

I roll over and after a couple of tries, I'm up on my hooves. As I turn to Rainbow Dash, another pegasus crashes through the branches and lands heavily in front of us. It's the mare from earlier. She's breathing heavily, like she's just run a marathon. "That pony is almost as fast as you are, boss."

Rainbow looks back at me and grins. "Yes, he's fast, but no pony is faster than I am. Did I have trouble catching up to you?" She pokes me in the ribs.

I smack the offending hoof away. "Where the hell are we?"

I think Rainbow Dash is supremely amused by the turn of events. Everything she's been saying has been half laugh, half talking. "These are the white tail woods." She indicates a direction, "head that way to get back to Ponyville."

"Ponyville?"

More smiles and laughs from the cyan pegasus, and the other pegasus has recovered, and she's laughing too. "The town you just took off like a crazy pony from. That's Ponyville, it's my home, and your home, at least for now."

"Fine, can we fly there?" I ask. I get a smirk and two sets of unfurled wings in response. 

"Race you home, 1, 2, 3, go." I'm half way through the limbs heading up by the time two comes out of my mouth. I hear a screamed curse as I power my way towards the appropriately named Ponyville. My head start is short lived though, that damned cyan pegasus has more speed than she knows what to do with. The other pony though, she may be a good flier, but she doesn't understand speed the way that Rainbow Dash does, and certainly not how I understand speed. I grin as I head towards the huge oak tree. I'm gaining on Rainbow Dash. 

All of a sudden, she's slowing down. Oh wait, my only landing in this body was a crash landing with Rainbow Dash glomped onto me. I backpedal my wings to slow down, and I'm slowing down, but not enough. She lands gracefully right on the doorstep to the library. I, however, slam into the trunk of the gigantic tree. Goodbye consciousness. I really liked knowing you. I think as the lights dim. I really need to stop knocking myself silly.